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Observations of the Yellow Kind: Akua

I've loved yellow geckos since I first laid eyes on them. Which explains why I have so many. What I've found over the years is that a lot of geckos tend to lose their color as they age. Akua is sadly the best example I have of this. I was just looking at her old pictures the other day and it made me so sad. Back in the day, I used to use her as an example of a creamsicle, but now I am no longer able to do that. I used to also joke that she was my banana split morph. And yet today that doesn't fit either.

I don't really think it's a case of firing up or not firing up. It's like she's lost the intense color she used to have. We can try all the tricks in the book to get her to fire up and nothing happens.

Anyway, I thought I'd make a thread to show you how much she's changed over the years. She's only five and I so badly wish she was as pretty as she used to be...

Her first photos taken by Mr. Gilpin

Her as a sub-adult

(not fired)

She's roughly 2 in these photos

Then to her photo shoot with Lellarap which I think she is the prettiest.

The last couple of photos

To this weekend, with her mate for this year, Montezuma.

Our photo taking has definitely improved over the years. I get a few requests now and then for new Akua pictures, but she is so danged frustrating to photograph. Plus I don't expect to ever see her as yellow/orange as she used to be. She's a pretty laid back girl and she has just really dulled down in my mind. She does have her huge noggin and scrote throat going for her, if you are into such things.

I'll have to see if I can dig up pics of my own faded yellow, but for some reason some do seem to 'fade'. When I first purchased my yellow dal lady she was as bright as a highlighter, 10 years later could be at best considered white with a hint of yellow. She passed her intense yellow to most of her offspring though. Have you noticed that Akua's offspring maintain her color as well? I thought I was going crazy, but no matter what I do my previous yellow is a much more faded whitish coloration with hints of yellow! She is definitely beautiful none the less!

My oldest yellow is my male Yelp. He is probably 8 - 9 years old now and is quite faded as well. He continues to produce some nice orange babies though. I've found that my dark pin adults also get a little duller with age, but it's maybe not quite as noticeable. I think it's probably just a function of aging. If someone has an older adult that really bloomed and intensified in color after the age of 3 or 4 it would be interesting to see / hear about.

This loss or inability to see the coloration, could be due to thickening of skin as they age. I find that my orange and yellow geckos have a huge range of firing... from white to intense orange. Here is an example of range on the same cg.